DOCSLIB.ORG

Immediate Justification and Process Reliabilism

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Immediate Justification and Process Reliabilism Immediate Justification and Process Reliabilism Alvin Goldman Rutgers University [Final version: October 13, 2006] 1. Introduction A central issue in contemporary epistemology is whether there is a species of (prima facie) justification that is immediate, direct, basic, or foundational. It is puzzling whether and how immediate justification could arise. This is perhaps the core issue that divides foundationalists from coherentists. An older conception of immediate justification is that some beliefs are capable of self-justification; they don’t need anything else to justify them.1 This conception of immediate justification is no longer very prevalent. Current defenders of immediate justification usually assume that a directly justified belief is rendered justified by some state of affairs distinct from it. What is special to the direct mode of justification conferral is that it doesn’t involve other justified beliefs (or states or propositions) as justifiers. Deniers of immediate justification doubt that this occurs, or even makes sense. In general, questions about justification can be given either a doxastic or a propositional formulation. A doxastic formulation presupposes that the epistemic subject has a belief of interest, and the question is whether this belief is justified. A propositional formulation does not presuppose that the subject believes the target proposition. It asks whether she is in a “position” such that it would be epistemically appropriate for her to believe it, whether or not she does so. We shall address both types of formulation. The issue of immediate justification can be resolved into three questions: (Q1) Is there a species of justification that is immediate, direct, or basic? In other words, are some beliefs or propositions made (prima facie) justified in virtue of states of affairs, processes, etc. that confer justification without themselves being justified? If question Q1 is answered in the affirmative, the next question is: (Q2) How is immediate justification conferral possible? There are well-known arguments, initially plausible-looking arguments, against the very possibility of unjustified justifiers. What is wrong with those arguments? Assuming that challenges to the very possibility of unjustified justifiers can be met, the final question is: (Q3) What types of states or process can serve as immediate justifiers, and what relations do they bear to appropriate beliefs or propositions by virtue of which justification is conferred on those beliefs or propositions and not others? 1 Here is a sample dilemma that appears to challenge the possibility of basic justification. Initially it seems that anything that makes a proposition or belief justified must itself be justified. This pattern is instantiated in the paradigm case of inferential justification. An inferred proposition is justified (for the subject) only if the premises or beliefs from which it is inferred are themselves justified (for that subject). But if the justifiedness of a proposition or belief depends on the justifiedness of another belief (or belief-like state), then the justifiedness of the target belief or proposition isn’t basic or immediate after all. Immediate justification can arise only from states, facts, conditions, processes, or the like that aren’t themselves justified, i.e., from unjustified justifiers. At a minimum, immediate justification arises only from states, facts, and so forth without depending on their justificational status (though they might have such status). But how can unjustified states or conditions confer justifiedness on a proposition or belief? Another challenge to the possibility of immediate justification is prompted by a second feature of inferential justification. In inferential justification, the source of justification is prior contentful (i.e., representational) states of the subject. The contents of these states are what fix the further propositions that are inferentially justifiable for the subject. What shall we say with respect to content for putative cases of direct, non- inferential justification? Must the unjustified justifiers themselves be contentful, representational states? If so, are the only propositions on which they confer justification the contents of the conferring states? If unjustified justifiers can be contentless, non- representational states, how do specific propositions or beliefs get selected as ones made justified by these contentless justification-conferrers? There seem to be three possible answers to this conundrum: (A1) Immediate justifiers are contentful states of affairs (presumably, states of the epistemic agent, S). (A2) Immediate justifiers are non-contentful states of affairs. (A3) Immediate justifiers can be either contentful states or non-contentful states (or perhaps a combination of the two). In the last few years several epistemologists have focused their attention on this nest of problems. I shall consider treatments of the topic by four epistemologists: Richard Feldman (2003), James Pryor (2005), Michael Huemer (2001), and Peter Markie (2005). Each offers helpful explorations of the territory, but none of them, in my view, offers a satisfactory positive solution. Markie, for example, treats the problem as an unsolved “mystery”. I shall suggest that process reliabilism offers the most promising solution to the problem, or nest of problems. Feldman and Markie will be unhappy with this proposal, because they are on record as finding serious or fatal problems with reliabilism. I won’t attempt, however, to address any of the familiar problems for reliabilism, such as the generality problem.2 This article is limited to a defense of the thesis that process reliabilism offers the best available solution to the puzzle of immediate justification. If this thesis can be made good, it will be a feather in reliabilism’s cap, even if it doesn’t solve other outstanding problems for the theory. 2 2. Feldman’s Proposal: A Proper Response to Experience Feldman, in his book Epistemology (2003), discusses the problem of justified basic beliefs with special attention to modest foundationalism. On Feldman’s construal, modest foundationalism includes the thesis that immediate justification in the perceptual arena pertains to (selected) perceptual beliefs whose contents are external world propositions, such as “There is a tree on the hill.” Feldman introduces the notion of a spontaneously formed belief, a belief that isn’t formed by conscious inference from other beliefs. He then considers principle P1 as a possible principle for basic beliefs:3 (P1) Being spontaneously formed makes a belief (immediately) justified. (2003, p. 73) This principle is quickly rejected, on grounds of excessive simplicity. To improve on P1, Feldman introduces the notion of a “proper response to experience.” Only beliefs that are proper responses to experience provide (noninferential) justifiedness, Feldman implies. Here is how he explains the notion: When you walk into a room, see a table, and form a belief that there is a table there, … [w]hat seems central is that your belief is a proper response to the perceptual stimulus you have. It is a suitable thing to believe given that experience. To believe something that does not fit that experience at all, such as that there is an elephant in the room, would not be a proper response to that experience. To believe something that goes beyond what is revealed in the experience, such as that there is a table that is exactly 12 years old, would not be a proper response to that experience.” (2003, p. 74) Feldman then proceeds to use this notion in a revised principle for immediate justification: (P2) A spontaneously formed belief is justified provided it is a proper response to experiences and is not defeated by other evidence the believer has. (2003, p. 74) The adequacy of Feldman’s solution to the problem of immediate justification obviously depends on what account is given of the newly coined phrase “proper response to experience”. What makes a belief a proper or improper response to experience? Feldman gives further illustrations of positive and negative instances of this notion: Other examples clarify the idea. Compare a novice bird-watcher and an expert walking together in the woods, seeking out the rare pink-spotted flycatcher. A bird flies by and each person spontaneously forms the belief that there is a pink- spotted flycatcher there. The expert knows this to be true but the novice is jumping to a conclusion out of excitement. The expert has a well-founded belief but the novice does not. In the same situation, both the novice and the expert may have well-founded beliefs about the color, shape and size of the bird they see. This suggests that there is some relevant difference between such properties as 3 being gray with pink spots and about 4 inches long and properties such as being a pink-spotted flycatcher. One might say that the former are “closer to experience” than the latter. Anyone with proper vision can discern the former in experience. This is not true of the latter. (2003, p.75) These are instructive examples, but what general principles should be extracted from them? Feldman proposes two factors that seem relevant to being a proper response to experience. First, when the contents of the belief are closer to the direct contents of experience, they are more apt to be properly based on experience. Second, modest foundationalism can say that training and experience affect what counts as a proper response to experience. The expert’s training
Load more

Recommended publications
  • GAGE-DISSERTATION-2014.Pdf (1.774Mb)
    ABSTRACT Objectivity and Subjectivity in Epistemology: A Defense of the Phenomenal Conception of Evidence Logan Paul Gage, Ph.D. Committee Chairperson: Trent Dougherty, Ph.D. We all have an intuitive grasp of the concept of evidence. Evidence makes beliefs reasonable, justifies jury verdicts, and helps resolve our disagreements. Yet getting clear about what evidence is is surprisingly difficult. Among other possibilities, evidence might consist in physical objects like a candlestick found at the crime scene, propositions like ‘a candlestick was found at the crime scene,’ or experiences like the experience of witnessing a candlestick at the crime scene. This dissertation is a defense of the latter view. Evidence, we will argue, consists in experiences or mental states called ‘seeming states.’ We begin with a look at why the logical positivists came to abandon the experiential or “phenomenal” conception of evidence and adopted what I call “the courtroom conception.” Despite its appeal, we argue that this latter view is too objective; it has trouble playing the role of subjective reasons-provider. Being more subjective, the phenomenal conception deserves another look. However, many have thought that the phenomenal conception itself is unable to fulfill other important roles of evidence. In Chapter Two we dispute this, arguing that the phenomenal conception can play all four of the chief roles of evidence. Examining the religious epistemology of Alvin Plantinga in Chapter Three we come to see that the phenomenal conception, while attractive, is in danger of being too subjective. If the phenomenal conception of evidence is to be tenable, it must be offered in conjunction with a conservative epistemic principle which tethers together experiences with the beliefs they evidence in an epistemically appropriate manner.
    [Show full text]
  • PGR Faculty List 2021 ALL Departments 24August2021 Draft
    Faculty Lists fall 2021 Email: [email protected] for corrections. Current update: 8/24/2021 #=75 or older in 2021 (* was over 70 in 2017 list) Part-time faculty are half-time, unless otherwise noted. UNITED STATES (the top 50 will be ranked) FACULTY # Arizona Faculty: Sara Aronowitz, Thomas Christiano, Stewart Cohen, Juan Comesaña, Reza Hadisi, RiChard Healey, Laura, Howard, J. Christopher Maloney, MiChael McKenna, Bill OberdiCK, Guido PinCione, Marga Reimer, Daniel Russell, Carolina Sartorio, David SChmidtz, Houston Smit, MarK Timmons, Joseph Tolliver, Jason Turner, Steven Wall, Jonathan Weinberg. Part-time faculty: *Allen Buchanan (.25 time) Cognate faculty and philosophers in other units: Martin FriCKe, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Christopher Robertson, Simone Sepe. FACULTY # Arizona State Faculty: RiChard Amesbury, Brad Armendt, Thomas BlaCKson, Cheshire Calhoun, Peter de Marneffe, Typer DesRoChes, MarCello Di Bello, Peter Kung, Joan MCGregor, Shyam Nair, Ben Phillips, Nestor Ángel Pinillos, Douglas W. Portmore, Maura Priest, Steven Reynolds. Part-time faculty: Cognate faculty and philosophers in other units: RiChard Creath, Tyler DesRoChes, ZaChary Horne, Ted Humphrey, PatriCia J. Huntingon, Manfred LaubiChler, Jane MainesChein, Martin BeCK MatuštíK, Ben A. Minteer, *Jeffrie G. Murphy, BeCKett Sterner, Jason Robert, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Norbert Samuelson, BeCKett Sterner. FACULTY # BerKeley Faculty: Olivia Bailey, John Campbell, Timothy ClarKe, Shamik Dasgupta, Johann FriCK, Hannah Ginsborg, Florian Grosser, Wesley H. Holliday, NiKo Kolodny, Geoffrey Lee, John MaCFarlane, Paolo ManCosu, Alva Noë, Andreja NovaKoviC, Kristin Primus, R. Jay WallaCe, Daniel Warren, Seth Yalcin, Xueyin (Snow) Zhang. Part-time Faculty: Joshua Cohen (.25 time), MiChael (M.G.F.) Martin, Veronique Munoz Darde, Kwong-Loi Shun. Cognate Faculty and Philosophers in Other Units: Asad Q.
    [Show full text]
  • Barnett CV January 2016
    David James Barnett Department of Philosophy • 807 Union Street • Schenectady, NY 12308 917 657 5326 • [email protected] • www.davidjamesbar.net AREAS OF Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind SPECIALIZATION AREAS OF Early Modern Philosophy, Logic, Philosophy of Language, Bioethics COMPETENCE ACADEMIC Union College. 2012-present, Assistant Professor, Philosophy Department APPOINTMENTS Union College. 2012-present, Affiliated Professor, Neuroscience Program New York University. 2015-2016, Visiting Scholar, Philosophy Department University of Edinburgh. Summer 2013, Visiting Fellow, Eidyn research center EDUCATION New York University. 2003-2012, PhD New College of Florida. 1998-2003, BA (Honors) in Philosophy and Cognitive Science DISSERTATION Self-Knowledge and the Boundaries of the Mind Committee: Paul Boghossian (chair), Don Garrett, James Pryor PUBLICATIONS “Perceptual Justification and the Cartesian Theater”, forthcoming Oxford Studies in Epistemology. Runner-up, 2015 Marc Sanders Prize in Epistemology “Inferential Justification and the Transparency of Belief ”, 2016 Noûs 50(1): 184-212. “Is Memory Merely Testimony from One’s Former Self?”, 2015 Philosophical Review 124(3): 353-392. “What’s the Matter With Epistemic Circularity?”, 2014 Philosophical Studies 171(2): 177-205. WORKS IN “Moore’s Paradox and Self-Knowledge” draft available PROGRESS “Epistemic Autonomy and the Cartesian Circle” draft available “A Note on Egan’s Counterexamples to Causal Decision Theory” draft available “Higher-Order Evidence is the Wrong Kind of Reason” outline
    [Show full text]
  • Seminar in Epistemology: Fallibilism (PHIL 468)
    Seminar in Epistemology: Fallibilism (PHIL 468) Professor Baron Reed Spring Quarter, 2012 office: 3-225 Kresge Hall 2-345 Kresge Hall email: [email protected] T 4:00-6:50 office hours: T/Th 12:30-1:30 and by appointment Course Description: “We are all fallibilists nowadays,” says Michael Williams. This is almost entirely true. But, despite its near-universal acceptance, fallibilism remains poorly understood. There are significant problems that follow in its wake—e.g,. the Gettier problem and the Lottery Paradox. Moreover, some philosophers claim more for knowledge than fallibilism can deliver, tying knowledge to assertion, practical rationality, and epistemic possibility. Finally, some philosophers think that the very idea of fallibilism is suspect; if the view is correct, it means “the world must do us a favor,” as John McDowell puts it. But the whole point of knowledge, one might have thought, is that it puts one in such a position that favors are not needed. In this seminar, we will investigate whether fallibilism has the resources to meet some or all of these concerns. Required Texts: Readings to be posted on Blackboard. Required Work: Work for the course will include a short paper, a presentation, a commentary on a classmate’s paper, and a final paper: 20% Short paper (4-5 pages) 20% Presentation (4-5 pages) 10% Comments (2 pages) 50% Final Paper (10 pages) Excellent class participation may also factor into the final grade. Course Policies: (1) Regular contributions to discussion will be expected. (2) Extensions must be requested before the due date.
    [Show full text]
  • Against Parthood* in Karen Bennett and Dean W
    Against Parthood* In Karen Bennett and Dean W. Zimmerman, eds., Oxford Theodore Sider Studies in Metaphysics, volume 8 (Oxford: OUP, 2013): 237– 93 I will defend what Peter van Inwagen calls nihilism: composite entities (entities with proper parts) do not exist.1 This formulation will need to be rened, and, at the very end of the paper, softened a little. But let us stick to the simple, strong version for now. Nihilism may seem absurd. For the world of common sense and science consists primarily of composite entities: persons, animals, plants, planets, stars, galaxies, molecules, viruses, rocks, mountains, rivers, tables, chairs, telephones, skyscrapers, cities… According to nihilism, none of these entities exist. But it is not absurd to reject such entities if one accepts their noncomposite subatomic particles. Consider three subatomic particles, a, b, and c, arranged in a triangular pattern. According to some, there exists in addition a fourth thing, T , which contains a, b, and c as parts. According to me, this fourth thing does not exist. Picture the disagreement thus: *Thanks to Frank Arntzenius, Elizabeth Barnes, Karen Bennett, Jiri Benovsky, Mike Bergmann, Ben Caplan, Ross Cameron, John Collins, Earl Conee, Shamik Dasgupta, Janelle Derstine, Sinan Dogramaci, Cian Dorr, TomDougherty, Matti Eklund, Hartry Field, Kit Fine, Anthony Fisher, Pete Graham, Yu Guo, John Hawthorne, Allan Hazlett, Sophie Horowitz, Michael Huemer, TomKelly, Josh Knobe, Rob Koons, Martin Lin, Ned Markosian, Kris Mc- Daniel, Trenton Merricks, Jill North, Lewis Powell, Jim Pryor, Josh Schechter, Nico Silins, Steve Steward, Margot Strohminger, Sarah Stroud, Meghan Sullivan, Jason Turner, Bruno Whittle, Dean Zimmerman, to anonymous referees, and especially to Liz Harman for much wisdom and patience.
    [Show full text]
  • A Companion to the Philosophy of Language
    A COMPANION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE SECOND EDITION Volume I Edited by Bob Hale, Crispin Wright, and Alexander Miller This second edition first published 2017 © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Edition history: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. (1e, 1997) Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148‐5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley‐blackwell. The right of Bob Hale, Crispin Wright, and Alexander Miller to be identified as the authors of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks, or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
    [Show full text]
  • Comments from Presentation
    Basic Justification and the Moorean Response to the Skeptic* Nico Silins [email protected] Introduction Suppose that, having concluded that there’s an external world, Moore forges on, and reasons along the following lines: BIV (HANDS): I have hands. (LINK): If I have hands, then it’s not the case that I’m a brain in a vat (BIV) who merely seems to have hands. So, (¬BIV): It’s not the case that I’m a BIV who merely seems to have hands. My focus will be on two questions about Moore’s justification to believe the premises and the conclusion of the argument above. At stake is what makes it possible for our experiences to justify our beliefs, and what makes it possible for us to be justified in disbelieving skeptical * For their helpful comments and questions, thanks to Richard Boyd, Stewart Cohen, Louis DeRosset, Ross Ford, John Hawthorne, Elizabeth Harman, David Jehle, Geoffrey Lee, Ram Neta, James Pryor, Stephen Schiffer, Declan Smithies, Scott Sturgeon, Adam Wager, Brian Weatherson, Ralph Wedgwood, Timothy Williamson, and Roger White. Special thanks to Matt Kotzen. I’m also grateful to audiences at the Universities of Calgary, Geneva, Kansas, Montana, Vermont, and North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Auburn, Columbia, Cornell, and Oxford Universities; and at MIT, SMU, and the ANU. 1 hypotheses about our experiences. The first question is (A) How is Moore justified in believing HANDS? Here my aim is to clarify and to defend the view that Moore’s experience gives him immediate or non-inferential justification to believe that he has hands (Pollock 1974; Pryor 2000, 2004, forthcominga; Peacocke 2004; Davies 2004).1 Doing so will be the task of sections 1 and 2.
    [Show full text]
  • SEP 2L1R1999 IR Tvwifm I LIBRARIES the Metaphysics of Dispositions by Jennifer Mckitrick
    The Metaphysics of Dispositions by Jennifer McKitrick B.A. Brown University, 1994. Submitted to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology September, 1999. © 1999 Jennifer McKitrick. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants M.I.T. permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part. Signature of the Author: ,, _ - Department of Linguistics and Philosophy Certified by: Ax Alex Byrne Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy Thesis Supervisor Certified by: A,, - Stephen Yablo Associate Professor, Departmlnt of Linguistics and Philosophy Thesis Advisor Certified by: Robert Stalnaker Professor, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy Thesis Advisor Accepted by: Robert Stalnaker Professor, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy Acting Chair of the Committee on Graduate Students MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OFTECHNOLOGY SEP 2L1R1999 IR TVWIFm I LIBRARIES The Metaphysics of Dispositions by Jennifer McKitrick Submitted to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy on July 30, 1999 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy. Abstract As Nelson Goodman put it, things are full of threats and promises. A fragile glass, for example, is prone to shatter when struck. Fragility is the glass's disposition, shattering is the manifestation of the disposition, and striking is the circumstances of manifestation. The properties of a fragile glass which are causally efficacious for shattering constitute the causalbasis of the glass's fragility. The glass can remain fragile even if it never shatters. One can say of the fragile glass, with certain qualifications, that if it were struck, it would shatter.
    [Show full text]
  • Mental Graphs
    Mental Graphs James Pryor Review of Philosophy and Psychology ISSN 1878-5158 Volume 7 Number 2 Rev.Phil.Psych. (2016) 7:309-341 DOI 10.1007/s13164-015-0280-1 1 23 Your article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution license which allows users to read, copy, distribute and make derivative works, as long as the author of the original work is cited. You may self- archive this article on your own website, an institutional repository or funder’s repository and make it publicly available immediately. 1 23 Rev.Phil.Psych. (2016) 7:309–341 DOI 10.1007/s13164-015-0280-1 Mental Graphs James Pryor1 Published online: 24 September 2015 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 Abstract I argue that Frege Problems in thought are best modeled using graph- theoretic machinery; and that these problems can arise even when subjects associate all the same qualitative properties to the object they’re thinking of twice. I compare the proposed treatment to similar ideas by Heck, Ninan, Recanati, Kamp and Asher, Fodor, and others. 1 Models of the attitudes span a range from the not-so-structured — merely sets of hypotheses compatible with what the agent Vs — to commitment to particular men- tal symbols, and access to as much structure as they may have.1 This paper identifies interesting intermediate models, that posit some structure but are noncommittal about how it’s concretely realized in our cognitive architecture. For some explanatory pur- poses this seems a preferable level of abstraction. States as described by these models can then be shared between creatures who realize that structure differently.
    [Show full text]
  • Empiricism and Experience (Henceforth, E&E)
    Equivalence, Reliability, and Convergence: Replies to McDowell, Peacocke, and Neta Anil Gupta University of Pittsburgh I am grateful to John McDowell, Ram Neta, and Christopher Peacocke for their critical attention to my book.1 Their objections and questions are exactly on the mark, and they help me to place the proposals I have made in a clearer light. McDowell and Peacocke challenge fundamental principles I use to motivate my account, and I should address their arguments first. Then I shall turn to Neta’s objection, which concerns a central element of my account. I. McDowell and the Equivalence Constraint McDowell claims that the very first steps leading to the account I offer are deeply flawed and, furthermore, that my account is unattractive when compared to his own version of disjunctivism.2 I want to examine the argument McDowell mounts for these claims. One of my first steps in the book is to accept the following Equivalence constraint. Let the given in an experience e of a subject S be the total rational contribution of e to S’s view of the world. Then the Equivalence constraint is as follows: Equivalence constraint: Experiences that are subjectively identical yield the same given. Consider an experiencing subject S in two possible situations: in one, S undergoes a veridical experience e, say of a pink cube, and rationally arrives at the belief that there is a pink cube; in the other, S undergoes a subjectively identical experience e*, say an illusion, and arrives at the same 1Empiricism and Experience (henceforth, E&E). 2“The Given in Experience: Comment on Gupta.” All parenthetical references to McDowell are to the pages of this paper.
    [Show full text]
  • Dreyfus, Matrix
    Dreyfus and Dreyfus, “Existential Phenomenology” 1 of 11 Existential Phenomenology and The Brave New World of The Matrix1 Hubert Dreyfus and Stephen Dreyfus The Matrix makes us rethink what we mean by contact with the real world, illusion, freedom, and what is required for human flourishing. Only then will we be in a position to take up the question, raised and answered in the three films, why, if at all, is it better to live in the real world, no matter how impoverished and unstable, than to live in a virtual world that is ordered so as to take care of our needs and let us get on with our everyday lives. I. The Myth of the Inner Thanks to Descartes, we moderns have to face the question: how can we ever get outside of our private inner experiences so as to come to know the things and people in the public external world? While this seems an important question to us now, it has not always been taken seriously. For the Homeric Greeks human beings had no inner life to speak of. All their strong feelings were expressed outwardly. Homer considered it one of Odysseus’ cleverest tricks that he could cry inwardly while his eyes remained dry.2 A thousand years later, people still had no sense of the importance of their inner lives. St. Augustine had to work hard to convince them otherwise. For example, he called attention to the fact that one did not have to read out loud. In his Confessions, he points out that St.
    [Show full text]
  • Common Sense As Evidence: Against Revisionary Ontology and Skepticism1
    In Peter A. French and Howard K. Wettstein (eds.) Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol.XXXII: Truth and Its Deformities (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008): 53-78. Common Sense as Evidence: Against Revisionary Ontology and Skepticism1 Thomas Kelly Princeton University 0. How far might philosophy succeed in undermining our ordinary, common sense views about what there is or what we know? Some philosophers suggest: not very far. Thus, according to David Lewis One comes to philosophy already endowed with a stock of opinions. It is not the business of philosophy either to undermine or justify these preexisting opinions to any great extent, but only to try to discover ways of expanding them into an orderly system (1973: 88). Compare Kit Fine: In this age of post-Moorean modesty, many of us are inclined to doubt that philosophy is in possession of arguments that might genuinely serve to undermine what we ordinarily believe. It may perhaps be conceded that the arguments of the skeptic appear to be utterly compelling; but the Mooreans among us will hold that the very plausibility of our ordinary beliefs is reason enough for supposing that there must be something wrong in the skeptic’s arguments, even if we are unable to say what it is. In so far then, as the pretensions of philosophy to provide a world view rest upon its claims to be in possession of the epistemological high ground, those pretensions had better be given up (2001:2). 1 This paper is part of an ongoing, if somewhat slow-moving, campaign on behalf of common sense; an initial foray was Kelly (2005).
    [Show full text]